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French in Action - My Review | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| erinserb Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7194 days ago 135 posts - 144 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 65 of 72 01 May 2014 at 4:39pm | IP Logged |
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Pierre Capretz and French in Action - simply the best!!! RIP Monsieur Capretz - the maestro!
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| athos.jingle Diglot Newbie Singapore Joined 6328 days ago 12 posts - 8 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, English Studies: German, French | Message 66 of 72 09 May 2014 at 4:06am | IP Logged |
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I'm not sure if it's due to my stupid? that when I tried FIA, the first couple of
sessions are fine, but after Mireille and another guy (not Robert) on the balcony scenario, the course suddenly turned quite difficult for me to catch up. I tried watch the video quite some times, but still could not grasp what is the professor or characters saying. Is it that I shall not aim at understanding everything, but just guess what's happening, and one day, boom, i'll "get it"? or is it that I shall seek for other materials? currently i only have the videos. is it that i shall get the workbook to work on exercises? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 67 of 72 09 May 2014 at 12:04pm | IP Logged |
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One point of the course was to get you used to Parisian French as it is spoken. So
from the start you are exposed to essentially full-speed conversation on a variety of subjects. As in real life, some characters are easier to follow than others. So for the character sections, you are right that you are learning to get the gist of a conversation. If FIA is your only source of learning, the videos are not enough. The textbook is also entirely in French, but it has transcripts of all the character conversations, vocabulary and exercises. The simplest way to use FIA would be to get the textbook so you can follow the conversations, and use other materials for your learning. If you want to go the full route, besides the exercise booklets you will need the audio, which is very expensive. My advice in brief: use another course for your main learning. Use the FIA videos + textbook as a supplement. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 68 of 72 25 October 2014 at 2:59am | IP Logged |
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Someone asked me about French in Action. I responded...
Bien, I am watching a video right now. I've just really started using the program seriously. I've had it for a long time. I've been feeling I would get some benefit from something to fill in the cracks in my studies. I would do well in a class, but for language learning, most of my learning takes place solo. What French in Action brings is everything that one would have in a classroom situation for learning and the freedom to act solo. I got the videos very cheap, about $89 from a .tv site a few years ago. I also have the 2nd edition of the textbook, workbook, and study guide. These three books come in two parts. Lessons 1-26 in part 1, lessons 27-52 in part 2. The video is indispensible. It is not HD. It may have been shot with a video recorder, so I'm not sure HD is really possible. On a PC, it's fine. On a big screen TV it's okay as well, but HD would be cool. I also have the audio. To really do the course as designed, one needs the audio and the workbook for sure. The textbook has partial transcripts of the episodes and certain things, "documents", images, cartoons, questions, as well as vocabulary help that isn't in any of the other material. For that reason, as well as it's integration in the course, I think it's necessary. I'm certainly using it. The audio is very helpful as well. The first track is sort of like the soundtrack for the first part of the video. After that comes a series of tracks to help you be able to say what they said in the video. After that there are dozens of tracks per lesson that go along with exercises in the workbook. If one is just watching the video, they aren't really doing the course. That's not to say nothing can be learned from the videos, but I've read some forum posts that say things like "I've watched the entire course several times and I only understand about 70% and I can't speak French". Well, to that person I would respond that they haven't done the course and a lot of the learning takes place outside the video. Although the video may be "the heart" of the course, it's probably only about 25% of the course. There's a lot of vocabulary in the course. I've seen estimates between 3000 and 9000 words. I think it's closer to the upper number. (words, not "word families"). The workbook is great for focusing on details. It ties in the video, textbook, and the audio programs. For me, it adds a written component that has heretofore mostly been missing in my French study. To do a lesson thoroughly, one may take 7-10 hours. That will include watching the video two - four times, doing certain parts of the audio more than once to really internalize it, etc. That's all good news, because that means the course offers several hundred hours of instruction. I'm on lesson 4 and I've learned a few things already, particularly colloquialisms, in addition to the synergistic practice the course provides. Lesson 13 of the new 3rd edition is available on the Yale books site, and it looks great. It's very similar to the 2nd edition in content, but it has more and better pictures and they are in color. There is a significant addition in content with the diary of Marie-Laure. I wouldn't re-buy the books for the third edition, but I am waiting and hoping that by the time I get to part 2 of the course, the 3rd edition for that part will be published. It's definitely possible. You know the course uses "immersion". I believe that will help activate French in my head. The last thing I'll say for now is that I believe that after having done the course thoroughly, one could refresh their French after some years of neglect in a short period of time by watching the videos. This may be hard to imagine, but if you are young or your life changes or gets busy, it could happen. Re-living an immersion experience seems like the perfect way to reconstitute a language without much effort. Bonne chance! P.S. Since they do a lot of full speed French from the very start, I think it will help one sound natural. P.P.S. I have and use the study guide. Of all the components, it is the least necessary piece. It isn't worthless though. It does tell you do to certain things, like "watch the video again" for certain exercises, which I wouldn't have done if it hadn't been explicitly outlined in the study guide. Also, if you are just getting started with French, it will probably be helpful because it explains many things in more detail than elsewhere. P.P.P.S. The study guide is mostly in English. The instructions to the workbook start out in English, but transition to French around lesson 6, which is nice. I've noticed now too that the instructions on the audio become French in lesson 6 as well, so it really does become a complete immersion. I won't be surprised if the study guide in part two stays in English, but perhaps there's a pleasant surprise out there. Edited by luke on 25 October 2014 at 8:06pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4709 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 69 of 72 25 October 2014 at 6:30am | IP Logged |
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This may be of interest. A link to the Yale site with all the upcoming and currently
released parts: http://yalebooks.com/fia/ Since they are not updating the study guide, it makes me think it must not be all that important? Edited by ericblair on 25 October 2014 at 6:37am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| liam.pike1 Groupie Australia Joined 3752 days ago 84 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, French | Message 70 of 72 25 October 2014 at 2:31pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you for this brilliant summary of French in Action. In my recent post entitled 'French in 3 months?' I announced my plans to see if I could learn French in 3 months. Why? Because then my friend and her family will be visiting Australia from France; my friend speaks English fine, but her parents speak next to no English. However, I've always wanted to learn French, so I thought that this would be a good opportunity to learnt this beautiful language. Also, I really couldn't have more motivation to learn the language! (the post: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=39486&PN=1)
FIA was strongly recommended to me once I gained a basic knowledge of French. Now having read your post, I can't wait to start watching it! Thank you also for providing all the recommendations on how to use FIA most effectively :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ArtistOz Newbie Australia Joined 3893 days ago 4 posts - 11 votes Studies: French | Message 71 of 72 28 October 2014 at 2:23pm | IP Logged |
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How can you explain French in Action?
I decided about eight months ago to learn French. I did a lot of research on language learning and learning French. I started with Assimil French with ease and moved onto using FIA as my major French learning resource. After reading extremelingo's post as well as comments about FIA from other posters around the site I decided to purchase from Amazon and Yale all the books and audio. I already had the videos. I learn, I forget, I learn, I forget and repeat. I plod along, I know more than I did 8 months ago. I am retired I don't need to put any pressure on myself to learn by some date this is a life long learning experience. I use FIA my way which is not intensive and mostly for about 30 mins a day. It is the most adaptable French course I know of or as Pierre Capretz says its the raw material for a course. The videos alone are adequate enough to help learn French along with other resources. There is a conversational story which can last for 5 to 7 minutes the rest of the video tape features a collage of teaching, words/ideas and uses around the themes of that lesson with repetitions of the story and opportunities to pronounce bits of dialogues it moves along at a fairly rapid pace done intentionally by Capretz. The videos are dense with information. You are not suppose to understand everything at first, second or third or even the twentieth time but you will understand and learn more each day depending on those personal factors of memory, motivation and effort. In the textbook there are no transcripts of the whole episode / lesson only the story conversation there are mistakes in the transcriptions either through lack of proof reading or errors made when transcribing. Given the prestige of Yale and the high cost of the product this is just incompetence on the part of those putting the textbook together. The mistakes are minor and do not interfere with learning and understanding it just irritates me for the reasons stated above. as I've said the textbook is not a complete reiteration of the video it only has transcripts of the dialogues of the story around which FIA is built. It also has key words and concepts used in the video in an illustrative presentation. Some cultural or history notes and part of a diary by Marie Laure in an attempt to modernise or contemporise a 1987 production. Its not a big deal that FIA is 27 years old. The workbook is a thorough study of the content of the video and textbook and the words used in each episode. It is the academic part of the course and necessary for the serious student to master the lessons. It is used in conjunction with the audio tapes. Here be hard work. The study guide for self learners like myself is helpful and explains in English some of the mysteries that can baffle a new student of French. The audio is used with the workbook but can be used alone the workbook alone is not enough you do need the audio. This is if listening is an important component of your language acquisition. Both workbook and audio can be longer than an hour each lesson has a different time. So the videos, textbook, workbook and audio are each a part of a whole, each is incomplete alone, together they make a comprehensive French course. You can still use each individually but you only get part of a picture. How I use it currently. After experimenting for a while I have settle into this routine. I watch a single video lesson each day for a week, then progress to the next lesson. Sometimes I repeat or go back to earlier lessons and watch for a week or less. I am on lesson 24 this week. After I have watched the video the next time I watch I read the text alongside the video after a while or sometimes I will just play the audio part of the dialogue and follow the text or just listen to the dialogue repeatedly up to thirty times or more. Sometimes I just play the audio tapes and listen sometimes speaking parts of the dialogue when they say so. This can take an hour or more. After watching the video a few times it becomes less important and the listening becomes the focus. I need to listen millions of times. I am thinking in my next evolution of my strategy of staying longer with the videos until I understand and remember more than 80%. Its the comprehensible imput Stephen Krashen talks about where real learning happens. Not knowing everything but still getting the gist. It will increase the time spent progressing through the series not something to worry about as the goal is to know French thoroughly and a superficial study by cruising through the videos is not working as fast as I had hoped. Translation; its going to take a heck of a lot longer than I thought it would how naive I was at the beginning. When I first started learning French I met with a French speaking conversation group some of them are French teachers. At first they were speaking gibberish and I did not understand them now I am pleased to say they are speaking more clearly and I understand maybe 50% sometimes. Listening, you can't get enough listening if you want to converse in French for me reading is easier but I can't converse with a book. You may have noticed I am not working hard at this just watching and listening and learning little by little. I am just scratching the surface of this course and rarely use the workbook I don't need to work that hard. I believe in another six months I will have evolved a study strategy that will work for me using FIA and other ideas I come across from time to time. My strategy is just for me I wouldn't recommend it unless you are a plodder like me and run out of energy now and then if you study too hard. Oh yeah buying the books and tapes was well worth it for me. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ArtistOz Newbie Australia Joined 3893 days ago 4 posts - 11 votes Studies: French | Message 72 of 72 28 October 2014 at 2:52pm | IP Logged |
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In my research on French in Action I came across these comments in a Yale archive by Pierre Capretz made in the 1990's I believe. It helped me understand how to use FIA I have bolded what I think are the relevant remarks. I have translated it if anyone can make the translation better I would appreciate it.
Preambule, une response a D. Lepetit qui se demandait si trois heures de cours par semaine suffisaient pour enseigner FIA Il semble que french in Action soit utilise avec success dans des cours qui se reunissent cinq, quatre, trois or meme deux fois par semaine. Il va de soi que, quel que soit le material utilise - French in Action ou autre -, plus grand est le nombre d' heures, plus eleve sera le niveau de competence atteint par les etudiants. ( toutes choses etant egales par ailleurs ). Le nombre d'heurs n'est pas cependant pas le seul facteur: comptent aussi le degre de motivation des etudiants et la facon dont on peut organiser le cours. Avec French in Action, la plus grande partie des exercises peuvent etre faits et verifies par les etudiants en dehors de la classe. Il est donc possible d'atteindre un niveau de competence eleve meme avec un nombre d'heures de contact restreint. Bien sur nous souhaiterions tous avoir 5 heures par semaine pour tous nos cours de langue, mais il semble qu'un grand nombre de nos collegues ne disposent que de 3 heures. Ils font le maximum possible avec ces trois heures. ( "On fait ce qu'on peut: on n'est pas de boeufs", comme disait la brave fermiere que les Belleau n'ont jamais chasses de sa vieille maison paysanne - 34.5.) Les enseignants qui ne disposent que de deux ou trois heures de cours ajustent leur objectifs en fonction du temps qui leur est imparti, en attendant d'avoir convaincu l'administration de leur accorder plus. French in Action n'a pas ete concu pour etre enseigne dans un nombre d'heures determine. La matiere est trop riche - aussi riche que la langue et la culture francaises... enfin, presque :) - pour pouvoir etre jamais entierement assimilee quel que soit le nombre d'heures qu'on y consacre. French in Action a ete concu comme un materiel mis a la disposition des enseignants pour leur permettre d'obtenir les meilleurs resultats possibles etant donnees les circonstances dans lesquelles ils enseignent. French in Action n'est pas un cours. Ce n'est que la matiere premiere du cours. Ce sont les enseignants qui determinent les objectifs et modelent le cours en fonction des etudiants et des conditions d'enseignement. Cette matiere premiere que fournit French in Action, peut etre - et est, en fait - utilisee dans des cours destines a des professeurs de francais en activite qui desirent se perfectionner aussi bien qu'avec de jeunes enfants. Cela, au rythme d'une ou deux heures par semaine dans certains cours de soir, par example, ou des plusieurs heures par jour comme dans les cours intensifs donnes dans des instituts d'ete. Parmi les quelque 2500 cours qui utilisent FIA aux Etats-Unis, tous les cas de figure possibles sont representes. J'espere que vous serez nombreux a venir nous dire sur cette FIA- List combien d'heures de cours vous avez et comment vous vous debrouillez. Ici a Yale, nous avons la chance d'avoir obtenu, il y a tres longtemps, cinq heures des cours par semaine pour tous les cours de langues de premiere et deuxieme annee. En outre, j'ai reussi, il y a aussi tres longtemps, a faire accepter le principe que les tests (hebdomadaires et d'une duree d'environ 20 minutes) etaient toujours administres en dehors des classes, jamais pendant les trop precieuses heures de cours. Mais je sais que beaucoup d'entre vous arrivent a obtenir des resultats remarquables tout en étant dans des conditions moins privilegiees. Ce sont surtout eux que nous voudrions entendre...enfin "lire" P. Capretz Translation Preamble, a response to D. Lepetit who wondered if three hours per week were enough to teach FIA It seems that french in Action is used with success in courses that meet five, four, three or even twice a week. It goes without saying that, regardless of the material used - French in Action or other - the greater the number of hours, the higher the level of competence achieved by students. (All other things being equal elsewhere). The number of hours is not however the only factor, also count the degree of motivation of the students and the way we can organize the course. With French in Action, the largest part of the exercises can be made and audited by the students outside the classroom. It is therefore possible to achieve a high level of competence even with a limited number of contact hours. Of course we would all wish to have 5 hours per week for all our language courses, but it seems that many of our colleagues have only 3 hours. They make the maximum possible with these three hours. ("We do what we can: we are not cattle" as said by the brave farmer that the Belleaus have never driven from his old peasant house - 34.5.) Teachers who have only two or three hours of class adjust their goals with time allotted to them, waiting to convince the administration to give them more. French in Action was not designed to be taught in a determined number of hours. The material is too rich - as rich as the french language and culture ... well, almost :) - to be able to ever fully be assimilated regardless of the number of hours put into it. French in Action was designed as a material made available to teachers to enable them to achieve the best possible results given the circumstances in which they teach. French in Action is not a course. It is only the raw material of the course. It is the teachers that determine the goals and shape the courses according to students and teaching conditions. This raw material that provides French in Action, can be - and is, in fact - used in courses intended for active French teachers who want to improve as well as with young children. That, at the rate of one or two hours per week in some evening classes, for example, or several hours a day in intensive courses given in summer institutes. Of the 2,500 courses using FIA in the United States, all possible cases are represented. I hope many of you on this FIA - List will come and tell us how many hours you have and how you are doing. Here at Yale, we are fortunate to have obtained, a very long time ago, five hours of classes per week for all language courses for first and second year. In addition, I managed, a very long time ago, to accept the principle that the tests (weekly, and lasting approximately 20 minutes) were always administered outside the classroom, never during too precious class hours. But I know many of you are able to achieve outstanding results while being under less privileged conditions. These are mostly the ones we want to hear ... well "read" P. Capretz 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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